different to the vicissitudes and ultimate issues of the conflict. One hears more about the war in Spain than in any other country. But the nation is itself neutral, if we regard the term as signifying opposed to intervention. Señor Dato proclaimed the neutrality of the country in the first days of the war, and his successors have not ceased to practise the same policy, which they know to be in accordance with the interests as well as with the wishes of the nation. A rare unanimity has been shown in Spain on this point. In a country which has always appeared unsettled and divided, this unanimity is remarkable, showing that it is prompted by something more than a mere desire to submit to the policy followed by different statesmen.

The fact is that Spain suffered more in the nineteenth century through wars than any other country in the world. From the Napoleonic wars to the Spanish-American disaster, Spain never ceased to sacrifice the better part of her people, now in conflicts with foreign Powers, now in colonial wars and internal dissensions. Having suffered so much from war in the recent past, Spain wishes to keep out of the present conflict at almost any cost. She has done so up to now, and will exert all the means in her power to continue to do so. She is too weary of wars which have bled her white to join in a quarrel which she does not regard as her own, and for which she is not prepared materially or financially. Finally, her own internal affairs, unsettled at the moment, added to the division of opinion with regard to the merits of the two belligerent groups, make it impossible for her to side with either of them. This is the only conclusion at which we can arrive if we study the problem calmly and dispassionately.

Let us begin by examining the attitude, or rather the successive attitudes, adopted by Señor Maura during the course of the war. For many years the head of the Spanish Conservative party, Señor Maura now leads-it would be perhaps more correct to say that he now serves-a small band of admirers, the 'Mauristas,' who organised themselves into a collective body upon his retirement to private life in the autumn of 1909. Señor Maura is a man who has provoked throughout the whole of his political career the greatest enthusiasm as well as the bitterest hate. Endowed with a strong personality and an energetic character, his politics are more theoretical and

idealistic than capable of practical application. When as Prime Minister, or as the head of the Opposition, Maura led the Conservative party, he was as cordially disliked by the extreme Right as by the extreme Left; Carlists and Catholics on one side, Republicans, Socialists, and Radicals on the other.

On April 21, 1915, Señor Maura emerged from the silence in which he had lived since he abandoned public affairs in 1909-a silence unbroken except for a few letters to coreligionists and associations friendly with him. This long silence had caused continual discussions, and the announcement of a speech to be delivered by him in the Royal Theatre at Madrid aroused the greatest expectations and excitement. The writer was present on this occasion, and confesses himself unable to describe the wild, almost unprecedented enthusiasm which prevailed among the thousands that had packed the largest Madrid theatre in order to hear the declarations of the late Sphinx. But the enthusiasm decreased visibly when Señor Maura dwelt on the foreign policy of the nation, for the larger part of his audience was pro-German, and he made it clear that he was not. He recalled the Carthagena treaties of 1907, subscribed by the Government of which he was the head; he laid stress on the unanimity, the rare unanimity, exhibited in Spain as to the soundness of the foreign policy implied by the ratification of those treaties. He affirmed the community of interests that links Spain to France and England, reminding his audience at the same time of their reciprocal promise to maintain the status quo in the Mediterranean; and he said, clearly and forcibly, that the situation respecting those points being in 1915 exactly as it was in 1907, the necessity and utility of the Carthagena treaties remained as great as ever.

It would be useless to deny the visible dismay that these declarations caused among his hearers, most of whom were also his political followers. They plucked up their spirits a little when he proclaimed that the possession of Tangier by Spain was demanded by reasons of justice and of international convenience. But, on the whole, Señor Maura's speech dismayed his admirers, though it was well received by the supporters of the Allies in Spain, whose cause it helped to strengthen.

On September 11, 1916, Señor Maura delivered a second

speech, this time at Beranga, province of Santander. In this speech he proclaimed the necessity of adhering to the policy of neutrality; nothing, except direct aggression, could induce Spain to enter the war; there were no treaties in existence strong enough to compel her to join either of the belligerent parties. Neutrality was doubtless a difficult policy, but adherence to it was imperative. Yet Spain could not look with indifference on the catastrophe which was shaking the whole world; her privileged soil and her privileged geographical position compelled her to choose between one of the two groups of nations in which Europe would remain divided after the And she could not wait to choose until peace was signed; she could not remain in 'splendid isolation' during the war and after it run to the aid of the victor.' She had to select at once a course that would lead her to prosperity, to the fulfilment of the national aspirations; and in order to decide, it was necessary that the organised power of the State should work together with the nation. Opinion was unsettled, divided, and this was a great evil and a great danger.

He himself, as Prime Minister-Señor Maura went on to say -had shown that in 1904 and 1907 the interests of Spain were allied to those of France and England; yet, as soon as war broke out, a strong and intelligent current of opinion had inclined towards the Central Powers. Why? Because France and England, during two and a half centuries, had followed a policy that could only weaken and dismember Spain. Spain herself had been the principal agent of her downfall, but aided and abetted by France and England. Therefore, if those countries persisted in disregarding the interests of the Spanish nation, if they did not see their way to alter, nay, invert completely their foreign policy in regard to Spain, she would be forced to seek an alliance elsewhere. It was not enough that France and England, acting in accordance with the principles of right and justice, should allow Spain a free hand in Tangier, besides assuring her of their loyal co-operation in the protectorate of Morocco. If Spain could not obtain a fundamental variation in the policy of France and England towards her, then Spain could not remain with England or with France.

It should be observed that Señor Maura, while advocating an approach towards the Western Powers, subjected it to

conditions of which he had said nothing at Madrid. But in insisting on those conditions he was following the only course which could induce the country to unite itself and move towards the Entente Powers. Old grievances of Spain against France and England had been raked up and magnified to such an extent by the German propaganda, that Señor Maura could not have overlooked them without producing a contrary effect to that which he seemingly desired. He laid emphasis on these conditions in order to prove to his hearers that, as a statesman, he took note of the present and the past, as well as the future. Even if all do not agree with his attitude, no one can feel surprise that a statesman speaking for one of the proudest nations in the world should use proud words. But why did he not speak in the same tone at the Royal Theatre of Madrid? Why did he not speak in that same tone before the war, when he occupied a responsible position and his words carried even more weight? Why did he suddenly at Beranga lay down conditions referring to things which had happened years, and in some cases hundreds of years, before? The answer is to be found in the coldness with which certain parts of his Madrid speech had been received by his followers, the 'Mauristas.'

We come now to the last of the three speeches delivered by Señor Maura since the beginning of the war. It was in the Madrid bull-ring, and so recently as April 29th last. The meeting was attended by 22,000 people, mainly Mauristas, Carlists, and pro-Germans. It was an extraordinary speech. Spain, said Maura, could not continue in splendid isolation; she belonged to the group of Western Powers, but she could not be on friendly terms with them as long as she remained 'mutilated and humiliated; in such a condition she could only hope to be despised. England, by remaining in possession of Gibraltar and forbidding Spain to arm her own territory, humiliated the Spanish people. France, in 1902 and 1904, had behaved in a manner incompatible with the respect due to a great nation. The present situation in Tangier annulled all that had been previously granted to Spain. The future of Spain lay in the possession of the Straits of Gibraltar. Spain had been asked to break off diplomatic relations with Germany, but she had not received any offence from the Central Powers strong enough to provoke her to commit this iniquity.

The whole speech in itself, and even more if we recall the statements contained in the two previous speeches, was one mass of contradictions and incongruities. Señor Melquiades Alvarez conclusively pointed them out a few days later, in an article that appeared in the Madrid 'Liberal.'

'On one side' [he wrote]' we are told that Spain should join the Western Powers; on the other, that we have nothing to expect from France and England. On one side, that our sympathies should tend towards the Allies; on the other, that we must hate England, who possesses a portion of our territory. In Beranga, immediate option was advised; in Madrid, no option, no decision; neutrality only. In the Royal Theatre, that the life and independence of small nations depended on the issue of the conflict; in the bull-ring, that this is not true. In 1909, Señor Maura led us to a war in Morocco; to-day, the death of our fellow-countrymen, torpedoed by German submarines, is not sufficient motive even to demand compensation. Señor Maura did not appear to remember Gibraltar in 1904. To-day, forgetting the course of modern international ideas, he wants Spain to command on both shores of the Straits.'

Señor Maura's political theories have always been rather obscure, but his recent speech is more than obscure it is almost absurd; for the Maura of the 29th of April is a different Maura from the one who signed the treaties of 1904 and 1907, from the one who declared war in 1909, and who delivered the two speeches of 1915 and 1916. It is precisely these incongruities which serve to make his position unintelligible to many who sincerely admire him. They cannot explain these incongruities, except by believing that of late years at least Señor Maura serves, but does not lead, a group of followers who insist on showing their leader the path he must walk in, in order to fulfil their own particular aspirations.

Following Señor Maura's retirement from public affairs in 1909, Don Eduardo Dato became the leader of the Spanish Conservative party. When war broke out, he had occupied the premiership for almost two years, ever since the death of the great statesman and leader of the Liberal party, Señor Canalejas.

Many in Spain are apt to forget that the policy of neutrality which they so strongly defend is due to the initiative, tact, and prudence of the man who, at the head of his party, has been called to occupy, for the second time during the war, the